Charlotte Murder, page 10
Ray gestured toward the office. “We might as well sit while we talk,” he said. “I think there's some coffee left, too, if you'd like a cup.”
“I'd really rather stay where we can keep an eye on the dogs,” Ashley said, pointing them out. “They should be fine, but one of them is still a puppy, and I'd hate for him to get out and cause any kind of mischief on the lot.”
“Sure, I understand,” Ray nodded. “How about if I bring the chairs out here, and we can sit under that tree over there. We'll be out of the sun, we can relax a little while we talk, and you can still see the van and the dogs.”
The women agreed, and soon they were all settled into the chairs. Ray stared at the ground for a moment and then began to speak. “Okay, here's the truth about Barney and me,” he said. “I liked the old guy, in general, but he was a lousy boss. He was always stealing my sales, and yeah, it did burn me up a little. But it wasn't enough to kill someone over.”
“What do you mean? How did he steal your sales?” Patty asked.
“People would call or come by the lot, and I would talk to them. I would show them around, draw them in by finding out what they needed, and then help them pick out a truck. At that point, Barney would swoop in and walk them away from me. He'd close the deal, with himself as the salesman, so I didn't get the commission even though I'd done all the selling. He only handled the paperwork, but he cut me out of the money. That happened in probably one of every four or five sales I brought in.”
“That's awful,” Ashley exclaimed. “How could you even afford to keep working for him?”
“Well,” Ray said, “Barney didn't do it every time, and he paid me an hourly wage for the work I did in the shop, getting the trucks ready for sale and cleaning them up for delivery. And he was a fun guy to have around, other than the commission thing.” He shrugged. “You know, there's no perfect job. No matter where you work, there's going to be something you don't like. I figured, I knew what Barney was like, and I could live with it; who knows what I'd have to put up with if I went somewhere else.” Ray looked between the two women.
“Before you ask,” Ray said, “no, I don't have an alibi. I was at home that night, and I was alone. I was just kicking back and watching television, then I went to bed around 11. And no, I didn't kill Barney. Like I said, even though he cheated me out of some commissions, I liked the old guy. I considered him a friend although we weren't super close. I miss hanging out around here, talking trash with him.”
“What do you know about Rhona?” Ashley asked. “We haven't really learned much about her, except that she says that she dated Barney ten years or more ago and that she owns that bar over there.”
“Actually,” Ray answered, “Rhona manages Mercy Me, but she doesn't own it, even though she acts like she does. She's a tough one to read. One minute, she's as sweet as can be, then like flipping a switch, she's ripping someone's head off, usually about something pretty unimportant. If Rhona's around where I'm sitting when I'm at the bar, I'll talk to her, but I sure don't go out of my way to be around her.”
“What was her relationship with Barney like?” Patty asked.
“They were close, really close. I don't think they were a couple anymore, but they were very good friends. They drank together almost every night, either at the bar or at Barney's house after hours. I don't remember ever hearing them fight although they'd disagree about things now and then—never anything serious, not even yelling. And I overheard Rhona asking Barney for a loan not long ago. I don't know what she wanted the money for or whether or not Barney gave it to her, but they were tight enough that she felt comfortable asking him.”
“That's interesting,” Ashley reflected. She glanced at her watch. “Oops! We'd better get moving, Patty. If we don't get back to the kitchen soon, that bread dough will take over the place and kick us out completely.” Ashley turned back to Ray and held out her hand to shake his. “Ray, thank you. I'm not sure if the information about Rhona will turn out to be helpful, but it is interesting, at the very least. If you think of anything that might help us figure out who killed Barney, will you call?”
Ray assured Ashley that he would, and they took their leave. After dumping the water left in the dogs' bowls, they drove back to Fresh Start Kitchens.
“You don't think Ray killed Barney, do you?” Patty asked. “I heard something in your tone when you asked him to call if he had any more information.”
“I don't think Ray's the killer, no,” Ashley answered. “But I can't explain why. He's still the most likely of our suspects, and what he told us today does give him a motive. But there's just something that makes me think he didn't hurt Barney. I don't know what, but there's something.”
“I agree with you,” Patty said, surprising Ashley a little. “When Ray talked about Barney cheating him out of commissions, he sounded more resigned to the situation than angry. I could maybe see striking out right after a lost sale to Barney, maybe hitting him over the head, but the idea of Ray sneaking up on Barney and suffocating him just doesn't fit.”
They got back to their kitchen in time to pull the roasted chicken, beef, and pork out of the ovens, inhaling the heavenly scents the dishes put out. They worked together to punch down the bread dough and then divided it into individual rolls. Ashley brushed them with butter flavored with garlic powder and dried ground jalapenos, before covering them to let them rise a second time.
“That's done for now,” Patty said. “The smells in this kitchen have made me ravenous. I'm going to the diner for a club sandwich. Would you like to join me, or can I bring you something?”
“Knock, knock,” Ryan called out before Ashley could make up her mind and answer Patty. “How are my two favorite ladies today?”
“Hmm... nice line,” Patty winked at him. “We were just about to go out for lunch, so you're lucky you're getting to see us at all.”
“In that case,” Ryan said with a sweeping mock bow, “you must allow me to treat you both to lunch. It will be a pleasant interlude, enjoying good food in pleasant company.”
“You are in a mood, aren't you?” Ashley laughed. “What do you say, Patty? Are you willing to be seen in public with this scoundrel?”
“I believe we can risk it,” Patty answered. “Everyone in town already knows what he's like, and besides there are two of us. I think we can handle him.”
Laughing, they walked together to the diner in the next block. After letting the waitress know that they wanted three blue plate specials—club sandwich, french fries, and coleslaw—with iced tea to wash it down, Patty and Ashley brought Ryan up to speed about the murder investigation.
Ashley noticed that Ryan seemed distracted, zoning out and missing half the conversation, then tuning back in to ask pertinent questions. He also seemed to have some sort of fixation on Patty's hand, staring at it oddly.
There it is again, Ashley thought. Ryan's acting all strange again. He invited himself along for lunch, but he's not paying all that much attention to the conversation. And why does he keep looking at Patty's hand? That is definitely weird.
Finally, they finished their meals and walked back to the Fresh Start Kitchens. Ryan took Dizzy and Dash home with him while Ashley and Patty worked some more on the food prep for the weekend's fundraising dinner.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I'm going to run a Charlotte Royale over to Esperanza and Gracia Ruiz,” Ashley said. “They're hosting a Très Generaciones tea party this afternoon. When they asked me to make a dessert for them, I took advantage of the chance to try out the dewberry version we talked about. I didn't have ladyfingers cooled and ready, so I made a Royale with the sponge cake we had from that last big baking spree. I told them that I'd give them a discount if they'd tell us what they think after the party.”
“That's an efficient business move,” Patty laughed. “Get paid to use your customers as guinea pigs! I like it.”
“Yeah, like you've never done it yourself,” Ashley giggled. “Who do you think I learned it from? Oh, and speaking of learning from you, I had a thought at the Mercy Me bar. We need to add your pommes frites to the food truck menu. We can serve them with Andalouse sauce most places and offer truffle aioli for fancier events.”
“I hadn't thought of the aioli,” Patty said. “That's a great idea for using our deep fat fryers! And we can set one fryer at the blanching temperature and the other to the fry temperature to keep them moving quickly. I've even done them by baking them in place of the second fry.”
“They're great with anything we'll be serving as mains, and they're perfect for that mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack, so we'd have something to offer when it isn't a meal time. And I never did figure out what made yours so good! I followed you, step by step, but mine were never as tasty!”
“Mm-hmm,” Patty smirked. “Did you really think I was going to tell all my secrets to a spoiled American who turned her nose up at cooking, because she was a baker, which was clearly better in her mind?”
“I wasn't spoiled,” Ashley laughed. “Far from it in fact, since things had already headed south by the time we met.”
“Yes, but I didn't know you weren't spoiled when I was teaching you about pommes frites,” Patty said. “And you never asked again after I got to know you better!”
“Whatever,” Ashley laughed harder. “I've got to go. I'm going to be late, and Esperanza will call her curandero to curse me! Of course, she's the only one who thinks that's an option, the healer says that he doesn't do curses—only folk medicine healing.”
“Go on with you, then,” Patty said. “Why don't you call it a day after that? We're going to be busy in a couple of days, so we should both take whatever breaks we can!”
Ashley agreed. “I’ll talk to you in the morning, then. Maybe I can talk Ryan into dinner out tonight.”
A little later, Ashley parked in the driveway of a cute American Foursquare home. Esperanza and Gracia had done a beautiful job landscaping the home with both native and tropical plants, including deep orange and red hibiscus bushes across the front of the porch and brilliant hanging baskets of geraniums, fuchsia, and petunias. At the side of the neat house, a row of antique roses scented the air, and Ashley knew that the mother-daughter duo had an extensive vegetable garden in the backyard, most of which was planted in sweet feed buckets and galvanized tin troughs and tubs.
“Hello, Ashley,” Gracia greeted her as the baker stepped up onto the porch. “Thank you so much for making a special dessert for us on such short notice.”
“No problem,” Ashley answered. “You're doing me a favor, too, remember? I've made Charlotte Russe tons of times, but I've always used either raspberries or even once or twice strawberries. Patty and I are providing the food for a Texas themed dinner next week, and I'm hoping this version will be enough of a hit with you, your Mom, and your guests that I can use it for the dinner.”
“If it tastes even half as good as it looks,” Gracia said, taking the cake from Ashley, “you've got a hit on your hands. I love how the cake and filling swirl around together to make such a beautiful pattern.” She gestured toward the back of the house with her head. “Come in and say hello to Mama. She'll be unhappy if she doesn't get to see you.”
“Ashley, how are you?” Esperanza greeted them in the kitchen. “Mi hija, fix Ms. Ashley a glass of mint tea. Ashley, sit yourself down at the table. Gracia makes the best mint tea in South Texas, and you can't leave without having a glass.”
“Mama,” Gracia laughed. “You do know that it doesn't count when it's your Mom bragging about you, right? Ashley, is mint tea okay with you, or would you rather have something different? We have regular black tea and green tea made for this afternoon as well, if you'd prefer one of them.”
“No, no,” Ashley shook her head. “The mint sounds wonderful. I keep a pot of it growing at my cottage all year long. I think it brings summer time in during the middle of winter! But are you serving iced tea at your party? Aren't you going to be using any of your fantastic collection of tea pots? I loved seeing all of them when we catered your book club meeting last month.”
“Oh, we'll have hot tea available,” Gracia said. “There's no way Mama's going to miss the chance to show off that collection. She's only a little proud of it.” She winked at her mother while holding her thumb and forefinger together to tease her.
“Mocosita!” Esperanza swatted at her daughter. “You love showing them as much as I do! And what kind of a tea party would it be without teapots and china cups?” She spoke to Ashley, “We always have the teapots and teacups with hot tea, but my abuela gave me some stunning crystal glasses, and the weather's warm today, so we decided to have iced tea as well.”
“Some of the younger guests will probably like it better, anyway,” Gracia said. “The abuelas—the grandmothers—will drink hot tea because they insist on being traditional about tea parties. The Moms will drink both because they're perfectly fine with breaking tradition to stick with their own preferences. Las niñas pequeñas—the little girls—mostly won't care as long as they get to drink from the special cups and wear boas and hats!”
“Es la verdad,” Esperanza nodded. “That's the truth. I remember the first time you came to one of the teas with me, mi hija. You wore a hat that was, I think, bigger than you were tall, and the boa you wore was wrapped around your neck four times, then around your waist twice, and you still kept tripping over it. It was adorable.”
Gracia smiled endearingly at her mother. “And I remember the hat you wore for the holiday tea last December. It had the entire collection of gifts from The Twelve Days of Christmas on it. I don't know how you held your head up all night. That hat was heavy!”
As Ashley listened to their bantering, she thought about how sweet it was, they were clearly as close as any two people could ever be. How does it feel to be that close to someone? she wondered. I'll bet they even finish each other's sentence sometimes. Smiling wistfully, she finished her glass of tea and stood.
“That was delicious,” Ashley said. “Thank you so much for sharing with me. I need to run but be sure to let me know whether it's thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the dewberry version of Charlotte Russe.” She gave both mother and daughter a hug and showed herself out the front door.
As Ashley sat in her car, her thoughts strayed again to the easy, close relationship Esperanza and Gracia shared. Are Ryan and I there yet? She mused. I thought we were, but I'm not so sure now. Can we be that close and still hide things from one another? Ashley sighed as she realized that she wanted their relationship to become that close even if it meant struggling to keep them together and getting closer.
Ashley started the car as her thoughts wandered back to Barney. What was really going on between Barney and Rhona? she pondered. Were they just casual friends, or were they much closer than that? She backed out of the driveway, and then her thoughts drifted again as she pointed her car toward home.
Ashley thought back to finding the brochures under the driver's seat of Barney's truck. “Huh! I just realized,” she said to herself. “Those pamphlets were all crumpled, like they'd been shoved out of sight—like maybe Barney wasn't really interested in looking at them. I wonder, did someone other than the doctor or her staff give them to Barney?”
Ashley thought about that for a moment, trying to remember the details of the leaflets. She remembered that they were about alternative cancer treatments, and she soon realized that all but one, were about chakra healing, positive affirmations, essential oil therapy, and special diets, recalling that one of them encouraged cancer patients to eat 15 to 20 pounds of fruit and vegetables every day! Now I'm sure Barney didn't get those from the doctor's office I called. What is it about those papers that's niggling at my brain? Ashley questioned herself.
Suddenly, Ashley remembered the décor in the office at Mercy Me. “Rhona had a salt lamp and a chakra poster,” she exclaimed aloud. “That's a pretty old-school, blue-collar and conservative part of town. I doubt very many of Barney's neighbors are much into New Age theories.” She hit the brakes and turned the car around. Ideas of what happened on the night Barney was killed were suddenly clear in her mind.
Pulling out her phone and dialing the sheriff's office, Ashley drove quickly toward Mercy Me. “Hello, this is Ashley Adams,” she told the person who answered. “Is Beth Sanchez available?”
“I'm sorry, Ms. Adams,” the deputy said. “Deputy Sanchez is off duty. Is there someone else who can help you?”
“I'm pretty sure I know who killed Barney Smerna,” Ashley told him. “Beth is the lead investigator on the case. I'm on my way to the bar across from the New Again Van and Truck Sales lot. It's called Mercy Me. I think the bartender killed Barney, and I'm going to go over to talk to her. Can you have a deputy meet me there? Or call Beth and see if she can come down?”
“Ms. Adams, that's not a good idea,” the deputy replied. “Confronting someone who may have already killed a man isn't wise if you aren't properly trained. I'll call Deputy Sanchez, and she can send someone to talk to this person. Why don't you go home and wait for her to call you?”
“No,” Ashley said. “Without knowing what my business partner and I have discovered, Beth won't have any reason to suspect Rhona. I need to talk to Rhona. I'd prefer to have a deputy there with me, but I have to talk to the woman.”
“Okay, okay,” the man said. “Let's do it this way. You said the bar is across the street from the crime scene, right? Go there and wait for one of the deputies to get there. I'll have dispatch send someone over now. When the deputy gets to where you are, you can explain it all, and then the two of you can go talk to this Rhona person together. I remember you from a couple of other cases. I trust that you have good information, but I also remember that you rushed in a couple of times and almost got seriously hurt. Wait across the street for the deputy, Ms. Adams—Ashley. Don't go into that bar alone, okay?”
